Fauna, as much as flora, govern susceptibility to wildfires

THE WORLD is warming. All else being equal, that warming will promote wildfires. One job which human beings face in the future is therefore to ensure that all else is not equal. And that means understanding how those fires are regulated naturally.Part of such understanding, Claire Foster of the Australian National University, in Canberra, argues, is a better perception of the role in fires of animals. In a paper in she examines ways that animals’ activities can suppress or promote the spread of fire.